Do you wish to stay anonymous while surfing the web? If yes, then AirVPN could be the ideal service for you.
While anybody can claim to be distinct nowadays, when it comes to VPN suppliers, AirVPN shows that it genuinely is.
AirVPN stands apart from other VPN services because of its dedication to securing user privacy. Right from the start, the AirVPN website starts with an appeal for your trust, specifying, “A VPN based on OpenVPN and operated by activists and hacktivists in defence of net neutrality, privacy and against censorship”.While anyone can claim to be unique these days, when it concerns VPN service providers, AirVPN reveals that it genuinely is.
They have actually been around a very long time, since 2010, when it was started with the help of two lawyers and a small group of hackers and activists. The satellite communications company Iridium previously ran it, however AirVPN took control of in November 2012. According to the owner’s listing, AirVPN, based in Perugia, is currently owned by Paolo Brini (Italy).
During the last decade, it hasn’t been dogged by security scandals like some VPNs have. Nor has it been acquired by a larger company either.
Throughout their About Us and Mission pages, the company’s history is described and information the privacy projects that AirVPN has developed or supported. These consist of an online encryption tool, a net neutrality monitor, and other projects such as Tor, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and WikiLeaks.
AirVPN takes the unconventional route and breaks the mold by providing a VPN designed by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.
So how does AirVPN compare to its competitors with such strong personal privacy credentials?
AirVPN’s Key Features
Servers
AirVPN’s network is much smaller sized than most, with only 246 servers spread across 23 nations.
Many servers are in Europe (aside from those in the US, Canada, and Hong Kong). A small concern here is that the absence of diversity of servers decreases the number of international AirVPN users who might access geo-restricted services in their home country while keeping their personal privacy.
That said, Air is well known for its outstanding performance throughout its server network, with many nations having high-performance physical individual servers.
They utilize transparent bandwidth allocation strategies to provide an accurate assessment of performance, with no overbooking or overselling. Plus, they are completely unlimited, without any speed constraints or time limits.
To establish a connection between your machine and their servers, they use OpenVPN and WireGuard (in beta). OpenVPN is the most safe and trusted method to create encrypted tunnels. It uses more security than the military.
Various ports and protocols are readily available; they use OpenVPN on the following ports: 80 TCP/UDP, 443 TCP/UDP, and 53 TCP/UDP. Moreover, every Air server directly supports OpenVPN over SSH, OpenVPN over SSL, and OpenVPN over Tor. So forget about PPTP and other risky protocols.
When it boils down to it, no choice is given to any service, protocol, or application. Net Neutrality is upheld. Significantly, you can overcome web constraints such as avoiding censorship, geographic constraints, and traffic shaping.
The usage is OpenVPN is a big plus as it immediately enhances users’ privacy and security and is highly trustworthy. The absence of WireGuard as standard might show Air isn’t quite keeping up with its rivals. That said, AirVPN states it is evaluating WireGuard, however it won’t put the newer protocol fully in place till some of its technical and personal privacy issues are attended to.
AirVPN has likewise added a lot for power users and tech-savvy people who like to experiment with things.
Switching is unlimited, so if you don’t like one server, you can easily change servers as often as you like.
You can keep track of the existing load on each server, any existing problems, and a history of previous issues on AirVPN’s network status page (which opens in a brand-new tab).
There is a detailed specifications page for AirVPN’s servers, with info like the available ports, protocols, DNS server details (AirVPN has its own DNS server), and the IP addresses of each VPN server’s gain access to points.
All of it is nice, but considering that there is no third-party audit, you need to trust that what is being offered will work. Looking at the active community forum or the comprehensive open-source clients puts your mind at ease.
A nice aspect of this is that you can see what other individuals state about the service prior to signing up. You don’t have to take their word for it or the word of an audit.
Just How Private Is AirVPN, & Does It Keep Logs?
The business is extremely clear when it comes to AirVPN’s no-logging policy. Online privacy and security are the absolute concern, with protection from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that attack personal privacy. There is no individual info logged by AirVPN, which has a strong no-logging, tracking, or monitoring policy.
AirVPN doesn’t track what you do when you’re connected to the VPN, date/time stamps, or your IP address. It only collects non-identifiable “technical information” to keep the server running and enhance services, however you can ask for this info to be deleted at any time. This makes it one of the most privacy-friendly VPN services.
As a result, no one can identify you online; not even your ISP can figure out what kind of traffic or protocol you’re using.
There’s no listening in, so you can connect to any wireless network without stressing over your computer and the Wi-Fi hotspot spying on your information.
Even the most ruthless surveillance, censoring, throttling, and traffic shaping methods will fail against AirVPN since your ISP and government will only see TCP or UDP communication on a single port.
They likewise say they stick to EU privacy policies which any servers outside the EU will be treated with the very same or higher levels of privacy and data protection as those in the EU.
You can get a brand-new IP address to conceal your IP so that nobody can utilize it to discover who you are. You’ll remain safe with the high-level protection provided.
If your ISP or nation blocks OpenVPN, you can still connect to an AirVPN server through OpenVPN over SSH, SSL, or Tor.
Open-source clients and a lively community online forum allow you to get a sense of what current users are saying about the service before registering.
All of AirVPN’s software is open-source, which is a huge plus. This indicates that anybody can check out AirVPN’s security. ProtonVPN, Private Internet Access, and Mullvad VPN have open-source apps, however just ProtonVPN’s apps have actually been checked by a 3rd party.
Concerning security, AirVPN’s cryptography is perhaps the very best available. It’s similar to that of some other suppliers, but still worth mentioning. The very first exchange uses 4096-bit RSA to attain Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) through Diffie-Hellman key exchange. Following the first key negotiation, re-keying takes place every 60 minutes, and the user can lower this value. The main data channel employs AES-256-CBC encryption.
When creating an account, you are not required to input any personal information, not even your real email address. That’s fantastic because it lets you avoid leaving any sort of digital footprint. Be aware that you will not be able to alter your account’s password if you don’t utilize one.
Italy, where AirVPN is based, belongs to the 5/9/14 Eyes Alliances (a group of countries that share intelligence data). Even if the federal government asked for user details, AirVPN would have absolutely nothing to offer them.
Who Or What Is Eddie??
The Eddie UI is the name of AirVPN’s primary open-source application, offered on all major platforms and OSes, consisting of Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Despite Eddie’s substantial capability with OpenVPN, it does not yet support WireGuard, so performance isn’t rather as excellent as those suppliers who utilize it as requirement.
Establishing the app is easy, and it has all the info you need to connect to a VPN.
There are no maps or clearly indicated buttons to assist you. While it’s not hard to get things working, it doesn’t have the most user-friendly interface, so it might be a more challenging learning curve for unskilled users.
With Windows, there are a ton of download choices. There are builds for numerous running systems (from Windows XP to Windows 11), in 32- and 64-bit tastes, and in portable or installable formats. In addition, there’s a changelog to describe what’s new and an archive of past releases in case the most present doesn’t operate on your setup.
After introducing it, choose ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest location. When you’re ended up, you simply click Disconnect. Simple enough for anyone, but Eddie can do so much more since AirVPN provides more fine-tuned complete control over operations than any other VPN app we’ve seen.
Two key AirVPN functions through Eddie are its auto-connect and kill switch. AirVPN allows you to connect when your computer system starts up, however you can’t choose which VPN server it will connect to; it will always connect to the one you chosen last.
Although it specifies “kill switch” anywhere in the settings, AirVPN has a tab called “network lock” that does the very same thing. The difference is that AirVPN’s “network lock” stops all traffic that isn’t going through its safe tunnel. The majority of standard kill switches just do this when the VPN is on, but you can establish the “network lock” to filter your traffic at all times.
Eddie’s layout is easy to understand. Along the top, there are 6 tabs: Overview, Servers, Countries, Speed, Stats, and Logs.
The Overview just displays the server to which you are connected, the download and upload speeds, the exit IP address, and the connection time. This is where you log into your account.
The Servers page displays all offered servers in the network, in addition to comprehensive information about each one, such as the server’s label, area, latency in milliseconds from your location, and present users and server load. Impressive stuff!
This tab likewise has an amber/green signal that lets you know whether a server is recommended for you.
The Countries page shows the variety of servers offered in each nation at a glance, together with a sign of server load and user numbers. Just like the Servers page, the amber/green indicator is also revealed. Numerous servers have up to 1000 Mb/s bandwidth, while some smaller ones have a 100 Mb/s connection.
A green checkmark, a red “X,” and a blank box can be found on the right rail of the Countries tab. Highlight a country, click the green checkmark, and the servers for that country will appear on the Servers tab. This whitelist is essentially a favorites list; you might pick as lots of nations as you like.
If you click the red “x”, that nation will be eliminated, successfully making it a blocklist/denylist. To get rid of the green checkmark from a nation, click the empty box.
By picking a country, you are not immediately connected to a VPN server. To do so, go back to the Servers page and select the server you want in a particular nation. Then, connect to a server by marking it and clicking on the “indication out” icon on the right-hand side (a right-facing arrow pointing into a square bracket). There are also a checkmark, “X,” and blank box icons. There’s likewise a “refresh” button to get updated information on ping times and load times.
The Speed tab displays an easy throughput graph with thin plot lines. Its temporal resolution can be changed, so you can see traffic from the last 10 seconds to one day.
While a lot of apps display your existing VPN server location and IP address at most. Eddie’s Stats page also shows fine-grained details, such as the server’s location, load, present user count, protocol, port, encryption algorithm, session start time and length, IPv6 exit address, data uploaded and downloaded, and far more.
Power users, in particular, should value the capability to use a VPN with all the details they might ever want about the various locations, down to the number of users on a particular server. It’s a priceless resource.
Logs is an in-depth record of connections, routes, and other information.
This enables you to fine-tune the setup, such as whether it ought to constantly connect when opened, which protocol to utilize between UDP and TCP, and which port number. Proxies, Tor assistance, custom DNS servers, and routes can be modified.
The really competent user can enter into Advanced and Expert Mode settings, which permit, among other things, sending orders to the OpenVPN Management Interface via the Logs pane.
If the huge feature list appears frightening, even if you are a VPN expert, it might be tough to figure out what specific settings do and how to get the desired outcomes. In addition, it differs from any other service in terms of personalization.
Don’t dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie simply since of its complexity. Bear in mind that the program generally works fine on its own, and you’ll never see the settings till you try to find them. If you sometimes crave power or configurability, the app will provide it.
Suppose you do not wish to use Eddie. In that case, you can also set up a router or firewall to send all traffic through a VPN tunnel. This works with routers running the open-source DD-WRT and Tomato firmware and the FreeBSD-based pfSense firewall.
How Good Is AirVPN’s Mobile App?
Although there isn’t any VPN software for iOS, you can use an exceptionally feature-rich Android VPN app instead. This software application offers the same substantial configuration options as its desktop sibling and helpful status info.
Separate pages for nation and server lists are what the Android app does not have that the desktop versions provides. Instead, you can expand a nation and select a particular city on the same page. Some practical text additions make the information more easy to understand, but it’s still rather difficult to comprehend in some spots.
Android does not have as lots of settings as Windows. That’s not a significant critique; there are still much more than many people will ever need. The software application likewise attempts a little more to help you, with extra text subtitles to explain what each choice does.
Speeds/Performance
Using OpenVPN, the Eddie Windows app from AirVPN normally connects rapidly and is ready to enter less than 10 seconds.
Online reviewers felt the connection monitoring was excellent, with the app spotting when the VPN tunnel drops, informing us with a desktop notification, and reconnecting us in seconds.
In terms of privacy, leak tests revealed that AirVPN’s Windows client didn’t have any DNS leaks, which shows that the Network Lock/Kill Switch works well.
Now let’s get to those speeds.
It was always going to be slower than the WireGuard-equipped competitors due to the fact that AirVPN just supports OpenVPN.
However, reviewers have actually reported speeds to be exceptional. Undoubtedly, one said there wasn’t a single country where they might grumble about the speed. On the contrary, it was really outstanding overall.
While it wasn’t rather on top tier for VPNs that use WireGuard, it was still more than fast enough for the majority of people, and scenarios like HD video gaming, video, and streaming conferencing absolutely will not slow you down.
What AirVPN lacks is a broader number of server places. This may restrict the accessibility of close-by servers for some users (which will always result in much better speeds). As a result, this VPN is an exceptional option for many people in the United States and Europe, but perhaps less so for other areas.
Streaming
Streaming the huge services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Apple TV, Hulu, HBO, BBC iPlayer, and Discovery+ has actually been a mixed bag for reviewers. Some report that AirVPN is powerful enough to bypass the VPN blocks used by Netflix in the U.S.A., whereas others do not.
Certainly, some report that Air is quite bad for streaming and does not work with any of the significant streaming services. However, it appears to deal with less-popular streaming apps like Peacock and Sony Crackle.
Another reviewer states services like BBC iPlayer and United States Netflix seldom work, and when they do, discovering the best server requires prolonged experimentation. This is most likely since, unlike other companies, AirVPN does not use servers that are optimised for accessing streaming sites.
The good news is, on AirVPN’s site, there is a list of ‘blocked websites’ that users can examine to see if the situation with these streaming sites ever changes.
However, streaming is absolutely not an area in which AirVPN excels, merely because that’s not what the service is about, as they are more concentrated on privacy and security.
Does AirVPN Allow Torrenting?
Yes, it does; every web protocol, including peer-to-peer, is welcome. Air supports P2P file-sharing on all of its servers. There’s absolutely nothing to configure, no hoops to jump through. Just connect to the VPN server of your option and start.
Plus, you can use port forwarding to improve your file-sharing performance. Several applications, such as BitTorrent and eMule clients, would run badly without it, and your computer’s shares might be inaccessible from the Web.
File sharing has decent speeds on local servers, enables port forwarding for up to 20 ports at once (which lets you connect to more peers for faster speeds), and works with top torrenting clients like qBitTorrent and uTorrent.
AirVPN’s integrated kill switch, activated by default, will obstruct all traffic from leaving your device if the VPN connection ever drops. That way, you will not be sending out unencrypted packets to the Internet. If you are file sharing, a kill switch is really practical, especially if you need to leave your connection unattended.
Reviewers have revealed torrenting to be excellent, smooth running with quick download and upload speeds, and with no issues whatsoever.
AirVPN Plans & Rates
AirVPN uses a broader range of plans than a lot of VPNs. As standard, each plan lets you connect as much as five devices simultaneously, so you can connect your PC, phone, tablet, and a couple of other devices all at the same time.
This makes it an outstanding choice for individuals who reside in a family house or want to utilize a VPN on a public network. While 5 really should be enough for the majority of people, other VPN service providers provide 7 or even 10 if you require more.
Prices differs based on the membership length, and each plan consists of the same features. Most plans offer good value; nevertheless, longer subscriptions use the very best deal.
The standard pricing is in Euros. They utilize the European Central Bank to offer real-time exchange rates for those abroad, so it can be quickly converted to and paid for in the currency of your option.
The current plans readily available are:
Three days- EUR2
One month – EUR7
Three months – EUR15 – works out to EUR 5/month
Six months – EUR29 – works out to EUR 4.83/month
One year – EUR49 – works out to EUR 4.08/month
Two years – EUR79 – works out to EUR 3.29/month
Three years – EUR99 – works out to EUR 2.75/month
AirVPN accepts major credit cards, PayPal, Amazon Pay, and a whole load of cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Doge. Lots of worldwide choices are also accepted, such as Alipay and Giropay.
AirVPN offers a three-day free trial, which can be obtained by sending a message to the support team and utilizing the voucher code they send you.
There’s also a 30-day money-back guarantee, as long as they haven’t broken the terms of service or used more than 5 GB of data during that time.
AirVPN Customer Support
AirVPN has a different customer support offering than many other VPNs. While it does not have live chat, it uses email assistance and frequently asked questions (FAQs) and has a really active support forum with contributors from both the service itself and the community.
Importantly, AirVPN’s email assistance isn’t outsourced however can be a little irregular with the time it takes to get a response. That stated, the email assistance is high quality, and the agents are friendly and useful, but the thorough responses can be pretty technical, which may put off those new to VPNs.
AirVPN’s site has a lot of info, including a large Frequently asked questions area that is broken up by topic.
AirVPN’s community forums cover many different topics, however newbies will have the very same problems comprehending a great deal of the tech jargon in the posts.
AirVPN Pros & Cons
Pros:
No logging Whatsoever.
Exceptional speeds with minimal loss.
Unlimited P2P permitted with Port Forwarding.
Strong security on servers and apps alike, with advanced protocols and encryption.
Network Lock/Kill Switch.
Split tunneling.
Supports Windows, Mac, Linux, mobile, and routers.
Supports Tor over VPN.
Easy app setup and usage.
Many, many advanced settings and customization choices in the client app.
Strong Customer Support.
Active Community Forums and Comprehensive Guides.
Excellent rates, particularly for longer-term plans.
Optional block lists protect you from advertisements, adware, trackers, and hazardous sources.
Cons:
Only fully supports OpenVPN.
Client app isn’t extremely easy to use or attractive like other services.
Client app might overwhelm newer users.
It is really hit and miss with streaming services.
No native iOS or ChromeOS apps.
Possibly there are too many advanced alternatives.
Found in 14-Eyes Country.
Server numbers are fairly low.
Rounding Things Up – Is AirVPN The Very Best Choice?
The bottom line is that AirVPN is a strong, trustworthy, and safe VPN service with great pricing. It’s plainly geared towards more power and advanced users, so those brand-new to VPNs will be better served by a less, shall we say, specialized VPN supplier. Even brand-new users might do much, much worse.
While it could be challenging to use if you’re brand-new to VPNs, you’ll get much quicker speeds and much better results than a number of its competing VPN competitors.
This VPN service is more focused on protecting your personal privacy than unblocking streaming services like Netflix or Hulu when it comes down to it.
It may not guarantee the exact same level of personal privacy and anonymity as a service like Mullvad, which assigns you a random account number and enables you to pay in cash, AirVPN is still an excellent alternative for customers who value their privacy.
While it does not hit the speed heights of a WireGuard service, performance-wise, it’s absolutely the very best purely OpenVPN service out there. In addition to being an exceptional option for online filesharing.
Highly recommended!
Click Here Or Below To Join AirVPN Today!!
AirVPN Review 2022: Tested Them For 2 Years Here Are The Results
